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W. F. Bryan suggests that certain kennings in Beowulf were selected sometimes for appropriateness and sometimes for ironic inappropriateness, but such a view would appear untenable unless it is denied that the language of Beowulf is formulaic.

If the master of scops who was most responsible for the poem ever used kennings that were traditional, he was at least partly deprived of free will and not inclined towards shrewd and sophisticated misuse of speech elements.

Once many significant phrases are found in theory or in recurrent practice to provide for prosodic necessity, they are not to be defended for their semantic properties in isolated contexts.

It is false to be certain of having discovered in the language of Beowulf such effects as intentional irony.